


a rose cut by any other hand (is just as dead)

by deltacrow



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V
Genre: Spoilers for episode 37, more like major character absorption tbh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-04-13
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-03-22 17:25:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3737305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deltacrow/pseuds/deltacrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>In another life, Yuuto manages to unglue himself from the pavement and push Yuuya away from that motorcycle fusion trash's attack.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> been waiting for someone to "canon divergence what if yuuto had to replace yuuya in ep 37" and nobody wrote it! so i made myself super fucking sad and did it myself.
> 
> i also wanted yuuya to take yuuto home at some point and show off his doppelganger to his mom and ask "can i keep him???" and generally just. have yoko mother yuuto because heavens know he needs it D:
> 
> so im doing both and this was a bad idea before finals wasnt it.

In another life, Yuuto manages to unglue himself from the pavement and push Yuuya away from that motorcycle fusion trash's attack.  
In this life, though, he is woozy from whatever took over his instincts, his _mind_ , and Yuuya hesitates half a second too long. The Synchro Dragon's attack lands, and while Yuuto's life points roll to zero, it's Yuuya that gets thrown into the air like a rag doll, who lands on the grassy knoll with a harsh _thwump_ , and Yuuto limps over to this face and kneels. Yuuya struggles to smile, and grabs at Yuuto's hands weakly and tells him, _"You know, we could have been friends, I think,"_ before the blinding light filters out everything else. Yuuya removes his duel disk and claws at the pendulum-

 _"No, no, stay with me, you idiot,"_ Yuuto demands, _"I_ refuse _to lose you too!"_ Because they could have. They could have been friends, and Yuuto refuses to have this possibility ripped away from him like _everything else._ He leans Yuuya against his thighs and clutches the hand struggling with the necklace, meant to be a gesture telling Yuuya to _stop struggling_ , that there’s no _need,_ we will _get through this_ \--

But as soon as Yuuto clamps down around his hand, Yuuya takes one last shuddering breath and closes his eyes. The light around them gets brighter until Yuuto is forced to close his eyes, and he can _feel_ Yuuya's hands and body dissolving until there's nothing.

Yuuto is left alone in the park, clutching a green crystal pendulum like a lifeline. There is a deck beside him inside of an inactivated duel disk, and Yuuto gathers it close to himself numbly, like a plush toy. When the Ruuri lookalike-- Yuzu, he remembers, and wasn't it odd how much he and Yuuya had looked alike, and even that fusion pawn-- when she stumbles upon Yuuto again and demands to know where her friend is, that's when it fully sinks in.

Somehow, it's worse than he remembers, losing a comrade, and when she comes close enough to throw a punch, he steps forward and leans into her. Her arms automatically gather him into a hug, and that's when he lets himself cry, head down in the junction of her neck and shoulder.

She breaks the hug: she’s confused, she’s angry, and there’s something about the scrunch in her brow that tells Yuuto that she’s trying not to cry. But she slings an arm around his, and in a watery warble, laments about what they’re going to tell Mrs. Sakaki.  Yuuto is just grateful she's there at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yuuto makes it back to the host nest. well, he's already pushed the only other egg out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WARNING FOR: panic attack. seriously, it's a pretty big piece of what's going on in yuuto's psyche rn.

Yuzu brings Yuuto over to a towering young man in white. He’s been standing guard outside of the LDS Tower med bay, where the pineapple-haired fusion scum was laid up. The young man makes to hug Yuuto, but freezes when he sees the look on Yuzu’s face. Then he closes his eyes and shakes his head, his mannerisms stiffer than his pompadour. He introduces himself as Gongenzaka, with a deep bow and bitter eyes. Yuuto nods, and feels… awkward. Awkward, because he has a strange feeling that Gongenzaka is normally more boisterous than this.

They’re all quiet as Yuzu and Gongenzaka walk Yuuto back to the Sakaki house. _Someone_ needed to show up, Yuzu reasoned, and they might be able to get a full story when they’re in private. Yuuto feels more than a little anxious. He hasn’t seen his own parents in years, and hasn’t slept in a bed in the same amount of time—he’s not looking forward to explaining to someone else’s mother why the boy in front of her is wearing her child’s face but _isn’t hers_. The pendant is burning a hole through his shirt pocket, and he has the urge to put it on and clutch it until the points at the tip make his hands bleed. He resists the urge; it’s a dead boy’s artifact. Yuuto knows better than that.

God, Yuuya is _dead_ , and he has to tell Yuuya’s _parents_ , like he’s some sort of deranged body bag, showing up with her son’s face, covered head to toe in death and decay and filth—

A car takes a sharp left and barrels down the road. Yuuto doesn’t hesitate to grab Ruuri’s wrist and drag her into the nearest alleyway, trusting Shun to be right behind him; he covers her in his cloak, _god, why does she have to_ insist _on such bright colors—_

“Yuuto, what are you doing, that was _just a car—_ “

“ _What are you doing to Yuzu, you punk—_ ” Yuzu? That’s not—that’s not Shun, behind him, this isn’t Ruuri, _what is he doing, where are they—_

\--- ---

Yuuto realizes that now Gongenzaka has an arm around Yuuto, and Yuzu is holding both Yuuya’s duel disk and Yuuto’s hand. They’ve stopped in front of a house on a corner, nameplate Sakaki, and Yuuto still hasn’t stopped shaking from his panic in the alleyway. Yuzu slips a key out from under the mat and unlocks the door, before they enter into a small, dark foyer. A young sounding woman calls for Yuuya, tells him to meet her in the kitchen.

“Mama Sakaki,” Yuzu calls out, fumbling with her shoes, “I—“

“Oh, Yuzu! Hi there, honey! Are you staying for dinner?”

“That isn’t—“

The woman—blonde hair tied back in a ponytail, a controlled waterfall—strides out from the kitchen and turns on the light. She takes inventory of the small party of teenagers, and stops dead when she sees purple and black instead of green and red.

“Oh,” she breathes out. _“Oh.”_

Back still straight, gait still as graceful and purposeful as her entrance, Mrs. Sakaki—because that’s the only person she could be—steps toward Yuuto. Her eyes mist up as she finds the flaws in Yuuto that make him different from her son—different hair, different clothes, yes, but also different eyes, different posture; Yuuto’s cheeks are hollowed out from hunger, his filthy clothes and hand and self—he’s been sleeping and eating and running in and under these clothes for months between washes, because there’s not enough water for showers and washing clothes, only whatever bottled water they can find or steal. He suddenly feels very small under Mrs. Sakaki’s scrutiny, and bows his head. (He tells himself that it’s to give her a little privacy to grieve, too, and that _is_ part of it.)

Yuuto’s not expecting two hands on his shoulders, a strong grip hiding in deceptively thin fingers, and a kiss on top of his head. He’s not expecting to be pulled in for another hug, Mrs. Sakaki’s chin resting on top of his head.  The four people in the foyer stand as they are for a long while before Mrs. Sakaki, hand still on Yuuto’s back, ushers him into the kitchen and fusses until he sits down in a chair. Yuzu and Gongenzaka are torn between leaving or staying for what looks like the worst Hallmark family reunion in decades until Mrs. Sakaki tells them, in no uncertain terms, to sit themselves down at the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> survivors guilt and reactions tempered by guerilla warfare and realizing, oh goddamn, you need to be this kid for the forseeable future?? yuuto's super fucked up in the head right now, and will most likely end up having to plow through his trauma with little to no help. sorry.  
> NEXT UP: a night in with the Sakaki matriarch. probably a warning for more panicking tbh but at least there are cuddly dogs nearby.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hallmark Moment, ft. the cuckoo-bird son and his not-friends

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> again, warnings for panicking a lot, b/c being constantly reminded that you've killed someone, even accidentally, has got to really push buttons.

Yuzu, for all that she is like Ruuri with her stubbornness and her spark, is quiet—timid, almost, looking at anything and anyone but Yuuto. Gongenzaka takes the opposite route, staring into Yuuto like his eyes alone will lay answers at his sandaled feet. It’s unnerving, or would be, if Yuuto didn’t have a strange feeling of having been on the receiving end of that glare before. Mrs. Sakaki places plates in front of her three guests, and one at an empty seat for herself, before bringing over cooking pots and dinnerware to the middle of the table.

Yuuto’s stomach is lurching from all of the smells. It’s like what he remembers from being sick as a child—anything that smelt too much wouldn’t stay down, and would just make him feel worse. With that in mind, he employs the same half-remembered sick-day technique: find something plain to nibble on. There’s a salad bowl in front of him. That might do.

Yuzu and Gongenzaka openly stare as Yuuto fills a quarter of the dinner plate only and gingerly eats one leaf at a time, no fork, hands only. Mrs. Sakaki pretends not to notices. Yuuto still knows, anyway.

Eventually, he manages to tell them about what happened in the park. Sora Shi’unin as part of the Academia—he dances around what Academia has done to him, but Yuzu already knows, remembers from when he told her while they were looking for Shun, and makes horrified faces and gestures as he deftly avoids another question from Gongenzaka. The fusion pawn—“I never… did get his name,” he admits, “but he showed up after Academia did, every time, so we associated him with them.”—and their duel. And then he gets to Yuuya, and his throat closes up again.

“Yuuya—something happened. I don’t, I don’t remember part of the duel, but something happened. He drew fire from the pawn and—” Yuuto pushes himself up abruptly, and leaves the room, trying to find some way out of the house. He doesn’t want to relive this, he _can’t,_ but he _is_. His feet take him to a small closet with a washer and dryer. He sits on top of the dryer, rumbling and warm, and feels dirty and smelly and like a failure.

Chairs scrape. He can hear the soft pitter-patter of feet from a room or two over and breathes a sigh of relief when they don’t sound like they get closer immediately. He just—he’s not going to leave this room until he’s sure they’re all gone. He can spit back their friend’s death like the soldier they think he is if he can just take a moment and _breathe_.

\--- ---

The door slams somewhere in front of him. One pair of slippers shuffle to where Yuuto is hiding, and he flinches when the door in front of him folds open. Mrs. Sakaki purses her lips.

“We have enough hot water for you to shower,” she tells him, firm but not unkindly. “Borrow. Borrow a pair of Yuuya’s pajamas, and take a shower.” There’s a lump in her throat that she chokes around, and it tells Yuuto, plain as day, that the reality of her son being gone and having to pretend that he’s _not_ is just crashing around her.

He nods and slides off the dryer. As he passes her, she stops him and swallows her grief to give him directions to the bathroom upstairs and the linen closet for towels, and to inform him of the number of animals that are upstairs.

(Yuuto loved dogs, before the war.  Now he can’t think of one without thinking about those Ancient Gear hounds and how many people he’s seen fall under them.)

So he follows the stairs and finds the linen closet, the door folding out as he pulls it aside. The towels all look the same, and he’s grateful for that lack of choice. The bathroom is clean, well-lit, with a small window to a small strip of grass and the street. Worse comes to worst, he can use that as an escape route. Of course, it’s a two-story drop, but worse has happened.

The hot water feels like a blessing, washing away the caked on grime and grief that Yuuto started to believe was another layer. He realizes there is _no way_ he’s putting on his old clothes after finally feeling clean—it had taken at _least_ half an hour before the water rushing down the drain stopped looking opaque—and he feels like he’s betraying people, somehow, by refusing to. His clothes need a good wash, and nothing’s threadbare, so he’ll still be able to _keep_ them.

With great reluctance, he dries off, removes his deck from his deck box, and ties the towel around his waist. Stealing away to Yuuya’s room is no trouble—Mrs. Sakaki is still downstairs—and he steels himself before raiding drawers for underwear and something vaguely pajama-based. Flannels. Flannels will work well enough here. They’re well-loved, elbows and knees worn and ends fraying, and Yuuto feels a little better walking out into the hallway for his clothes.

He finds a cat laying on them. A _cat_ , of all things, is keeping him from what little remains of his life, and Yuuto doesn’t have the heart to move it. He’s tired, he finished killing someone’s _child_ , and he has to live in his _home_ for the foreseeable future like some deranged cuckoo bird, and a _cat_ is what defeats him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im sorry i literally havent posted anything, guys, b/c ive gotten caught in a lot of crazy stuff lately. mass updating ensues, I guess!


End file.
